Still More Beans But Some Other Stuff Too

I really thought I'd do a repeat of yesterday because I enjoyed it so much but that's not what I ended up doing. I didn't do any weeding but just picked beans so yes, I have more now than I did before in my kitchen but I'll tell y'all something- the pot of beans I cooked last night was one of the best pots of beans we've ever eaten. They were creamy and delicious. Took awhile to cook them. Not as long as if they'd been dried but they were worth every minute it took them to render them tender, not to mention every minute it took me to grow and shell them. I've been convinced for years that these heirloom rattlesnake beans were the only pole beans I'd ever plant again because of their vigor, hardiness and long and abundant yield. But now I feel like I've found a completely new thing about them to love which is eating the shelled beans when they get too large to cook as green beans. I just looked up the origin of rattlesnake beans and a website called "Gardening Know How" says that they came from the Southwest and are mainly associated with the Hopi. I feel certain that although they most likely did eat some of the young tender beans, they probably grew them primarily in order to shell and dry them when they got bigger, thus being able to store them for winter eating. I ate a bowl of the leftovers for my lunch today along with a piece of the cornbread I baked last night. 
Perfect. 
Because it's been so hot I haven't wanted to turn on the oven last night so I baked my cornbread in my air-fryer/toaster/oven and then air-fried the grouper I was cooking. Such a fine little kitchen appliance. It'll cook one of my smaller skillets of cornbread perfectly in about fifteen minutes. If that thing breaks down, I'll buy another one. It is that useful. 

I know you are all so tired of my bean talk. I'm sorry but I freely admit I'm obsessed right now. I remember once when I was planting my garden when we lived in town, the little boy next door came over and saw what I was doing and he said, "Mary, why are you planting those seeds?" and I said, "Robert, I'm not sure. I just know I have to."
And I do. All these years later, I still do. 

But back to the day- Glen's birthday is on Saturday. He will be turning seventy and then a month minus a day later, I will be seventy as well. Somehow I like the idea of being seventy. Seventy sounds so much more...legitimate...than being in my sixties. Maybe it's because I remember when my grandparents were in their seventies and still hale and hearty. Or at least my grandfather was. Granny was frailer, and didn't do much at all outside the house while he planted things and tamed the Roseland jungle and pruned the palm trees and made things out of wood in his shop. Granny was profoundly deaf and had been from a much younger age. Whatever it was that caused her deafness affected her balance tremendously. I hear that she was quite active in her younger years, teaching physical education to girls which was a rather shocking idea at the time. My mother said she'd loved to dance. But still, she and Granddaddy lived a fairly active life and had friends with whom they played cards and went out to the Anchor restaurant to eat with. 
I guess what I'm saying here is that I have good associations with the idea of people in their seventies. But I'm not sure Glen does. Neither one of his parents made it to that age. And while we were on our trip, he got a phone call from a very good friend of his from basketball days whose wife had just unexpectedly died. Glen had been at their wedding, eons ago, and the news struck him hard. 
This is what happens at our age. The idea of death becomes more real with every passing day. 
"Isn't it funny?" I asked my husband the other day. "Not one human has ever not died." 
I feel certain that we will not be the first to do so. Immortality is not part of the deal. 

Anyway, Glen will probably be fishing on Saturday, or at least he hopes he will be. He says he doesn't want anything else for his birthday but I did buy him a bottle of the bourbon he loves and I asked him what dessert he'd like me to make him. He said that he'd really like a German Chocolate Cake and so I will make him one. But that meant a trip back to the store and so off I went after I picked the beans, had my lunch, and took a shower. I went to Lily's Publix and got to visit with her for a moment and that's where I bought the bourbon. I also bought other groceries, despite my assertion TWO DAYS AGO that I would not need to go back to the store for two weeks. 
I read a recipe in the NYT's cooking newsletter today that intrigued me so much I wanted to make it and needed a few things for that and the cake. The NYT's recipe sounds ridiculous in view of the ingredients in it but it got so much praise in the comments, hundreds of them, that I feel I must try it. Plus, it has tomatoes in it and although all I have at the moment are cherry tomatoes, I'm going to make that work.

Hopefully. The name of the recipe is Dumpling Tomato Salad with Chili Crisp Vinaigrette. See what I mean about the ingredients sounding completely unrelated? 

I'll let you know how that goes. 

And here's a lovely picture of Maurice, putting her feet up after a long day of lazing about. 

A little while ago when I walked past her, I reached out to give her a little scratch which usually results me getting a big scratch but she gently held my hand in her paws with claws retracted and gave the back of my hand a little rough-tongue grooming and then let me go without injury. 
Miracles never cease. 
Thank all of you for the suggestions on how to get these cats back on their dry food. Maurice has pretty much accepted the fact that she's not getting more than a tablespoon or so of wet food a day and is back to eating the formerly beloved Meow Mix while Jack is still yowling at me to tell me that he is going to die if I don't spoon some more chunks and gravy into a bowl and set it before him. 
Well. Too bad, Jack. Time to get on with your life. 

Are you going to watch the debate tonight? I will but only because I am hoping to see DJT stroke out on the stage when his pathetic, swiftly rotting brain completely goes haywire, short circuits, and renders him literally speechless. 
Look. I didn't say I wanted him to die. Okay? But if that were to be part of god's plan, I would not weep.

See you tomorrow.

Love...Ms. Moon